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Tuesday, August 20, 2013

SYED ALI SHAHCommandant FC, Colonel Maqbool told reporters that the forces seized a huge quantity of explosive material during a raid at a warehouse in New Addah area of Quetta on Tuesday. – File PhotoPublished 2013-08-20 22:08:54

QUETTA: The Frontier Corps (FC) claimed to have foiled a major terror bid by seizing more than 100 tons explosives from Quetta, the capital of troubled Balochistan province on Tuesday night.

Commandant FC, Colonel Maqbool told reporters that the forces seized a huge quantity of explosive material during a raid at a warehouse in New Addah area of Quetta.

“Forces recovered 104,480 kilograms of explosive materials from the godown,” he informed.

Maqbool said the explosive material include potassium chloride, aluminum chloride, improvised explosive devices, detonators, circuit wires and other arms and ammunition during the operation.

He said the forces have picked up 10 suspected militants also during the operation that lasted for more than an hour. “All suspects have been shifted for interrogation,” Maqbool said.

Senior FC and police officers are interrogating the suspects picked up by forces.

“For the first time in the history of country, such huge quantity of explosives have been seized,” the FC commandant said, adding that the forces deserve to be appreciated for their efforts.

He said the miscreants had made secret rooms and planted explosive materials in five rooms to carry out subversive activities in Quetta, plagued by sectarian violence and attacks by Baloch separatists.

Maqbool said the same explosive material was used in Hazara town bombing on April 16, which had left more than 100 people dead. “These explosive materials could be used in suicide jackets as well,” he added.

All explosives were shifted to an unknown location and the bomb disposal squad was called in to sweep the area. Extra FC troops were also called in the area to maintain the order.

The operations were carried out after a series of bombings in Quetta that claimed scores of precious lives. Balochistan in general and Quetta city in particular are under the grip of rocketing, bombings and targeted killings for last more than a decade.

A close relative of the 911 terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is known as KSM among U.S. intelligence circles, is spearheading the massacre of Shias in Pakistan’s volatile Balochistan province, according to Pakistani media reports.

Badini is reportedly a deputy of Usman Kurd, chief of the Balochistan chapter of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi terrorist organization. Besides being a nephew of KSM, Badini is brother-in-law of Ramzi Yusuf, who was allegedly involved in the first attack on the World Trade center in 1993.

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has killed upwards of 2,000 Shia Hazaras in Quetta and Mastung, whch is today the second largest training grounds of LJ after Punjab. The LJ’s main demand is to get the Shias declared as non-Muslims.

According to Senator Hasil Bizenjo, who is said to be Premier Nawaz Sharif's eyes and ears in Balochistan, during elections this year the LJ offered complete support to his party, National Party, on a condition of that the Shias be declared non-Muslims once the party wins the elections. Bizenjo replied, "No."

Balochistan insiders have long blamed Saudi Arabia for sectarian violence in Balochistan. “The chickens have come home to roost,” says former speaker of Balochistan assembly Mir Akram Dashti. “The Saudis pumped billions into the seminaries in Balochistan in the name of Afghan jihad,” Dashti told this correspondent on phone from Turbat.

The U.S. government declared the LJ a terrorist organization in 2003, the same year KSM was arrested from the home of a serving military officer in Rawalpindi. Badini's arrest followed a year later and was reported by The New York Times.

The Kurd-Badini duo appears to be enjoying support of influential Islamist spies in the Pakistani security establishment, who enabled him to escape from the Anti Terrorism Force jail in Quetta in 2008. At that time, the C.I.A. was spreading its dragnet to nab Osama bin Laden.

According to a Pakistani media news report, “The Kurd-Badini, duo which now spearheads the ongoing massacre of Shia Hazaras in Balochistan, had made good its escape under mysterious circumstances after breaking the ATF jail despite the fact that it is located in the high security garrison zone of Quetta Cantonment.”

Violently anti-Shia, Badini's family patriarch is KSM’s eldest brother Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, who now lives in Dubai and is believed to be much higher than KSM in the al Qaeda hierarchy.

In Iran, another Baloch wahabi organization called Jondullah had actively targetted innocent civilians, both Iranians and Baloch, since the first Bush government in early 2000s. The Obama administration declared Jondullah a terrorist organization in fall 2010.